How many YouTube channels to collect per keyword on the run's first search. One YouTube search returns about 30 unique channels (measured 28, 27 and 36 for three keywords on 2026-08-09, combining the plain results page with the channel-filtered one); ask for more and you get what exists, not an error. Add keywords for volume. Three cases go past this value, up to 40 per keyword: each extra wave of a run with onlyWithEmail, onlyVerifiedEmail, minScore or emailDomains set re-searches at 40; a run with pasted TikTok/Instagram handles that comes up short can re-search at 40 in one refill pass; and the keep. The keep: on a run with no pasted TikTok/Instagram handles, crossPlatformDiscovery off, none of onlyWithEmail, onlyVerifiedEmail, minScore or emailDomains set and no proxy URLs of your own, with this value at 20 or more and maxCreators above this value x keywords, each keyword keeps every channel on the result page(s) it already fetched, up to 40, with no extra search request - but only when at least 30 minutes of the run's time budget (what is left of the timeout, less a reserve of up to 90 seconds) are left when YouTube is searched, and the extra channels are fetched last, only while the budget left still covers the website crawl, email check and AI openers of every creator already collected. A run on the default 1-hour timeout starts with about 58 minutes of budget; a timeout of 31 minutes or less never leaves 30. A TikTok or Instagram handle counts as pasted whenever its platform is selected, including the example handle gymshark this form pre-fills in both lists (an API call without those fields has none): clear both lists, or select only YouTube, for a keyword-only run.
Minimum:1
Maximum:40
Default:20
TikTok/Instagram proxy strategy
socialProxyMode
Optional
How TikTok and Instagram pick an exit. 'datacenter_first' (default): TikTok tries one Apify datacenter exit first and falls back to the proxy group above (RESIDENTIAL) on the remaining attempts; Instagram tries three Apify datacenter exits first, then up to three RESIDENTIAL exits. Your per-lead price is the same either way; what you may notice is a few extra seconds on a handle whose datacenter exit is refused before the residential attempt runs. 'residential_only' skips the datacenter rungs and goes straight to the proxy group on every attempt; pick it if you see datacenter exits being refused. Ignored when you supply your own proxyUrls (always honoured), and a run with apifyProxyCountry set is residential-only (the datacenter pool does not serve every country).